Inverted pattern approach to improve image quality of information hiding by LSB substitution

Capacity and invisibility are two targets of the methods for information hiding. Because these two targets contradict each other, to hide large messages into the cover image and remain invisible is an interesting challenge. The simple least-significant-bit (LSB) substitution approach, which embeds secret messages into the LSB of pixels in cover images, usually embeds huge secret messages. After a large message is embedded, the quality of the stego-image will be significantly degraded. In this paper, a new LSB-based method, called the inverted pattern (IP) LSB substitution approach, is proposed to improve the quality of the stego-image. Each section of secret images is determined to be inverted or not inverted before it is embedded. The decisions are recorded by an IP for the purpose of extracting data and the pattern can be seen as a secret key or an extra data to be re-embedded. The experimental results show that our proposed method runs fast and has better results than that of previous works. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.